I’ll admit it: I share the same affliction that many of us do … I can be enticed by the siren call of the mindless game show. There’s something either biological or neurological (or both) about the vicarious feelings that so easily evolve when watching contestants try to win a prize. You know what I’m talking about.
And yet knowing that, I’m still curious about the nature of some of these shows. In fact, I’ve already taken a look at both Million Dollar Money Drop and Wipeout over the life of my column, because I wonder if the what makes any difference when it comes to these shows. In search of an answer to that question this week I checked out Minute to Win It.
This is a show that requires contestants to successfully complete ten seemingly simple tasks, each in sixty seconds, more or less using household items. In fact, the materials are so common that the show has figured out how to engage audiences, by providing instructions for gaming at home — which serves the double purpose of contestant training — on the show’s website. Not only is that a good idea by the show, but it also opens up marketing and merchandising possibilities galore.
Hosted by Guy Fieri, the guy who is not Tyler Labine and also was not in a boy band (I don’t think), Minute to Win It currently pairs two strangers together and gives them a chance to win as a team. Last week’s show paired Christy, a teacher looking to give her parents a wedding and/or honeymoon, with Jason, a Not Jimmy Kimmel getting married soon and looking to buy a house. Let the madness begin!
Game one was called “Dizzy Mummy,” which calls for unwinding a roll of toilet paper by spinning. One win for Christy. Next came “Ker-Plink or Plunk,” which involves bouncing three marbles into floating glasses; Jason killed it. “Don’t Blow the Kings” required Christy to blow a deck of cards off of a table without blowing off the face-up kings. Nice! “Got Your Back” had both contestants bouncing ping pong balls at paddles in an attempt to topple them; I actually felt my heart pounding as the clock ticked down and Christy and Jason battled to knock over that final paddle. Phew!
“Egg Tower” saw Jason build a standing tower using four paper towel rolls and four raw eggs, and it allowed the pair to bank $50,000; apparently from that point on it was guaranteed money, even if they lost their remaining three lives. I wonder if it was enough for both partners to make their dreams come true.
“Pong^5″ called for Jason to bounce five ping pong balls into one cup in a row; I can’t believe he got it done on his first cup! “Extreme Mini Stack Attack” caused the two to stumble for the first time when Christy failed to stack twenty-one cups in a pyramid on a pizza box that she was holding aloft. One life down, but Jason made it happen.
Then came level eight, with $125,000 in their pockets and the $250,000 level theirs for the taking. In “Oh Nuts!” contestants are tasked with stacking a tower of eight nuts and bolts by rolling them off of the ruler that they’re resting on. Not as easy as it sounds from the description, as Christy discovered when she failed a second task. So was Jason able to get it done again, and get them over the quarter million dollar hump?
Unfortunately not, and the pair ended up splitting the banked $50,000 (I think that’s lucky, no?). Meanwhile, while I scratched my head over this as the credits rolled, I did find myself investing with Jason and Christy as they battled to accomplish seemingly mindless challenges. So is there something to the what of the show that sucks you in?
I still couldn’t tell you. But it was a fun hour!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Mar 07, 2011 @ 15:30 EST5EDT
